Two days after the death of bandmate Adam MCA Yauch, Beastie Boys rapper Adam Ad-Rock Horovitz reached out to fans with a note thanking his family and friends for their outpouring of love and support for his late friend.

In a heartfelt note posted on the Beastie Boys' blog on Sunday night, he wrote: As you can imagine, s**t is just fkd (f***d) up right now. But I wanna (sic) say thank you to all our friends and family (which are kinda (sic) one in the same) for all the love and support. I'm glad to know that all the love that Yauch has put out into the world is coming right back at him.

Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z and Eminem were among the celebrities who paid their respects following the tragic news. Madonna offered tribute to Yauch by sharing a photo of herself as a young star with the hip-hop pioneer on her Facebook page. In an accompanying post, the pop star also said: The Beastie Boys were one of a kind! And so was Adam! They were all an important part of my musical history and integral to the musical revolution that was happening at the time. I'm very sad to hear about Adam's passing. God bless him and his family.

The Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am took Twitter to pay tribute: 1 of my favorite hiphop groups...hiphop raised a lot of us & now we have to wake up because are hero's are dying too young (sic).

The Beastie Boys co-founder, who was also known as MCA, breathed his last on Friday morning after battling cancer in his parotid gland and a lymph node since 2009. He is survived by wife Dechen Wangdu, the American-born daughter of prominent Tibetan activists, whom he met in 1995 while attending a speech by the Dalai Lama at Harvard University, and daughter Tenzin Losel Yauch.

The Beastie Boys, which also comprises Michael Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock), have not performed live since the summer of 2009.